


There Are Answers Here

by angeloncewas



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Rebirth, Swearing, connoreatspants-centric, never thought that'd be a tag did you, no beta we die like john john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29487450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: It's very possible that a Sonic onesie will never strike fear into people's hearts the way a smiley-face mask has come to, but Connor's not too torn up about it. He doesn't need to be feared.-Gods create mountains. Men move them.Connor watches.People take this life thing too seriously,he thinks.
Relationships: Connor | ConnorEatsPants & Jschlatt, Connor | ConnorEatsPants & TommyInnit, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 183





	There Are Answers Here

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Connor not change his skin or come up with a character name for the TFTSMP and really just took off running.

Connor is the doorkeeper, so to speak.

The fabric of the universe is his childhood quilt, the ambiguous space between black and white is his home.

He’s not a god or a man, not exactly. To assign him one or the other would give him more importance than he actually holds.

Gods create mountains. Men move them.

Connor watches.

 _People take this life thing too seriously,_ he thinks.

He’s not sure if there’s others like him or if he’s entirely unique.

There’s probably no one _exactly_ like him - pulling a blue hedgehog onesie out of nowhere and deciding it’s perfect for someone’s line of work doesn’t read as a common experience - but he does know he belongs to this world.

Schlatt, caught in the limbo after Dream forcibly removes him from the living side of things, calls him the SMP’s welcome mat. Connor beats him with a sword till he’s cowering.

“What the fuck, man?”

“Don’t worry. You can’t die down here.”

_Smack._

Connor’s been doing this for centuries.

Maybe one day he’ll shrivel and rot with the rest of them, the pigs and their red-eyed company, all the people who claimed this world before Dream did.

Until then, he might as well do what he can.

Which is to say, be a glorified receptionist. No river or boat or coin for Charon, just some nothing caught in the middle of everything else.

Sometimes Connor wonders if the universe made a mistake. If there was someone else, a name one letter off or a birth time seconds late, who would have embraced his role in existence better than he does.

He doesn’t dwell on it. This is the role he’s always had. He’s never known anything but the doors.

Through one is a void, an empty, endless thing. A waiting room for souls. Through the other is the world where the living wait.

Never has Connor had company in between.

Until Schlatt.

Schlatt is new. Schlatt is different. Some sort of glitch in the system brought on by Dream stretching his power in a direction it wasn’t meant to go, for the first time Connor has company.

It’s miserable.

Long gone is the solitude, the only disturbance an occasional passerby bound for one direction or another.

Schlatt bangs on the doors until they would be dust if they were ordinary, swearing all the way. Connor resists trying to fight him as often as possible.

He’s not sure if Schlatt’s alive or dead; there’s no rules for this sort of thing. What he does know is that if he could kill the man himself, he would.

After months have passed, without any sign of change, they’re something closer to friends.

The awful noise has stopped at least, Schlatt having figured out that he can drink to his heart’s content, nursing a bottle of whiskey in a not-corner.

“Are you just gonna do that?” Connor asks him.

He takes another swig and shrugs. “You said I can’t die here.”

It’s been a while since the doors have seen use. Not since Dream took over the mantle of patron of the world or whatever has a single soul come by in either direction. The door to the void looks empty when Connor opens it, not even a lone murmur of discontent inside. 

That’s why the deaths that come are surprising.

They appear in front of Connor and Schlatt abruptly, disturbing their game of cards. A tall man with brown hair, a blonde kid, a shorter brunette, and some sort of fox hybrid wearing matching outfits.

Their wounds sew themselves up and their souls click and collide and bounce off of each other like a terrible game of marbles.

Schlatt places down an ace just as their way back opens. “Go fish.”

“I thought we were playing poker.”

Schlatt sighs and tosses his cards into the middle, warily watching the group out of the corner of his eye. “Can they see us?”

Connor shakes his head. “Not unless they try.”

The blonde steps through first, practically running, the young brunette at his side. The fox follows close behind.

“How would they try?”

The last guy pauses for a second before passing through. The door swings shut and Schlatt and Connor are alone again, the light slightly dimmer, the emptiness just the same as before.

“They’d have to not want to go back.”

Schlatt fills in the gaps.

The tall guy is Wilbur. They’re old somethings, a sort-of-maybe of arch rivals and friends and soulmates without any of the magic. They’ve known each other since before this world was something that mattered to either of them.

He’d told Schlatt his plan in vague terms while Schlatt was still up there. A tentative hope for the future; the uniform is for revolution.

Presumably the others are his men.

Neither of them talk about the fact that they’re kids.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

The blonde one’s Tommy. A loudmouth. He seemed to look up to Wilbur. The other one’s Tubbo, his best friend.

Schlatt has no idea who the fox is or anything about how they died - each with a different sort of scar - but he looks longingly at the life door for the first time in ages before conjuring some bourbon and going to sulk.

Schlatt’s a man, through and through. Connor tells him so and laughs as he dodges the glass bottle aimed at his head.

Connor prepares for death.

Not his own, theirs. The peoples’. There’s bound to be more losses if they really are trying to make something big happen.

Even though each person has only died once, at some point at least one soul is going to ask him where the death door leads.

They definitely should’ve given someone nicer this job. Connor hardly ever has the patience for the criers.

He gets out a box of tissues anyway, ignoring Schlatt’s snarky comments about what he’s gonna do with them.

When someone does come, they don’t cry.

The blonde from last time stands between the doors - _Tommy,_ Connor recalls - alone. Blood trickles down from an hole on the side of his head and drips and disappears into the ground. He looks small, almost fragile.

Connor doesn’t really care about the world and its strangers, not like Schlatt does in his brooding, but he can’t help but wonder what’s going on up there. Tommy’s landed in the doorway twice: so close together, so young.

Tommy, as if he can sense Connor’s thoughts, turns and locks eyes with him.

“Hide,” Connor hisses at Schlatt.

“What?”

_“Hide.”_

Under different circumstances Connor would laugh at the way Schlatt scrambles away like a cockroach, but he knows that would probably be unsettling, so he waits in silence for Tommy, who walks over with a question across his face.

“Hey, big man,” Tommy calls. “You look like you know what you’re doing, what is all this?”

“I… don’t know,” Connor replies carefully. He hopes Schlatt has made it somewhere out of sight because he doesn’t care to explain that whole story. “I think it’s a place you go when you die.”

“Is it like ‘ell then?”

Connor sighs at the dramatic drop of the ‘h’ and holds back the quip on the tip of his tongue that _no, of course not, this place has free alcohol and not firey torture, you’d think that’s pretty obvious._

“No,” he says instead. “Like a rest stop. A gas station.” The metaphors don’t seem to be helping. “You’re not actually dead.”

“How does that work?” Tommy tilts his head.

“I don’t care.”

The kid laughs, bright and too alive to be where they are. “Who even are you?”

“I'm Connor,” Connor tells him, as if that explains everything. “I live here.”

The lack of a house or any sort of anything hits him as Tommy gives him a look like he’s just said something massively idiotic. “Seems like a bit of a shit place to live.”

Connor shrugs. “You’re the one who wants to stay.”

“No, I want to go back. I need to-” Life's door opens and Tommy turns at the sound. “Oh, what the fuck.”

"That’s the way back.” Connor can see vague shapes through it, a hand and a tree. He’s not sure what Tommy sees, what anybody sees. He’s never had the normal experience. Maybe even he looks like someone entirely different to the eyes of a soul still holding on. “You can go through it.”

“Do you wanna come with me?”

Connor pauses and actually considers it.

It’s not that he can’t leave, he could probably even enter the void if he wanted to, he just never really sees the point.

He’s gone through in periods - there was a ruler once, there was a duel once - but it’s been ages. It’d be interesting to see where the world has gone. What rivers are familiar and what land has been ravaged beyond recollection.

He’s not so interested in what brought Tommy here. The violence sewn into the hem of gaudy military apparel, the want of men to build something within what already exists.

Connor’s not a fighter. He’s never understood it.

“Nah. Maybe someday.”

Tommy nods solemnly and gives him a salute before stepping through to the other side.

* * *

“What would I have to do to get some of your power?”

Schlatt’s tone is casual, but the undercurrent of earnestness keeps Connor from brushing off the idea of life and death in the hands of some ordinary person.

“Why?” he asks.

“I need to get back there.” Schlatt speaks like it’s the truth, like it’s the right answer, like that’s enough for power.

Of course he wants to get back, plenty of people do, but wishes don't grant themselves to reality just because.

On the other hand, no one’s ever landed in the space in between and stayed. Connor and Schlatt have been waiting for a solution that isn’t coming.

Unless the world decided it was time for him to have a roommate, there’s been a mistake made along the way.

So, Connor thinks.

About the things he never does, the dumb crap left on his literal doorstep. Life breathed back into warm flesh, the sun on skin that thrums with blood.

A book appears in his hands.

“What is that?”

It's pretty nondescript; a leather cover and white paper. Connor reads the first page and laughs before rifling through it. _”Apparently,_ you’ve been given the power of resurrection.”

Schlatt frowns. “No, you have.”

The thing in Connor’s hands is not the doorways, the book doesn’t hold entire realms within its pages, but it is like a key. He runs a hand along the binding and almost asks himself about the morality of this before realizing he doesn’t care.

The most unsettling part is the feeling of it, as though he’s opening his home, but that’s what he’s been doing with Schlatt this whole time anyway so he shakes his head and hands it over.

“Try not to fuck up the world too bad.”

The life door swings open.

Schlatt looks vaguely impressed at the timing. It’s the closest Connor’s ever come to actual communication with the universe.

A small part of him somewhere is genuinely sad to see Schlatt go; you don’t spend theoretical eternity with someone and not grow somewhat attached.

Schlatt smooths out his tie and mocks Connor’s hedgehog getup one last time - for posterity’s sake - a gleam of ambition in his gaze as he leaves.

Connor allows the peace to settle back in. It’s nice. It’s like how things were at the beginning.

Sort of.

The room becomes less of a gateway and more of a revolving door.

Some dude with a headset practically flies through, wearing the same uniform as all the others. Then Wilbur again, his expression stricken and his footsteps heavy. He lingers and there’s a second where Connor expects Wilbur to say something, but he just shakes his head and leaves.

 _Dream must be winning,_ Connor thinks, wryly.

Tubbo and Schlatt and some other guy pass through all at once, their elbows bumping in spectral scramble back to life. The kid looks worn and Schlatt looks gaunt; Connor wonders if he’s doing what he wanted to when he couldn’t.

Schlatt comes alone the second time. He looks angry, like the experience has personally offended him. He’s gone pretty quick, but he shouts “Hey Connor,” as he passes, almost as an afterthought, and Connor laughs into the silence that remains.

Schlatt’s the only one who knows what awaits. He can’t imagine how that must be.

The headset guy comes back, but he leaves just as quickly as he did the first time. Clearly whatever is on the other side of life is of no interest to him.

Soon after, Schlatt’s on his third round. He doesn’t come down kicking and screaming, he appears silent, and that’s how Connor knows it’s over.

“They finally got you huh?”

Schlatt rolls his neck languidly. “No way. Got myself.”  
  
“What?”

“Had a heart attack.”

Connor laughs so hard that Schlatt starts to look annoyed, the death door open and waiting while he wills air back into his lungs.  
  
“I drank a fuck ton in here.” Schlatt protests over him, crossing his arms when Connor only laughs harder. “I forgot that you have to care about your liver.”

“You’re a dumbass,” Connor tells him, mock-wiping off a tear.

Schlatt flips him off as he heads straight to the void without any questions or qualms, but he pauses at the entrance and turns.

Schlatt’s always been a proud guy - of course he is, who else would ask a guy in a fluffy costume between worlds to give them power - but something in his face is almost, _almost_ sheepish.

“I uh, gave your book to Dream,” he admits.

“You gave the person in control of the world,” Connor says slowly, “the power to bring dead people back to life.”

“Yeah.”

Laughter bubbles up out of Connor and he fights to stay upright; he swears he can feel his lungs ache even though that’s not possible. “You are a _dumbass,”_ he repeats.

The faint tension disperses and Schlatt almost smiles before grabbing a bottle of whiskey out of the air and bidding Connor goodbye. He struts to meet death like there’s a business deal waiting.

Connor thinks that’s the end of it.

The good guys won. Sort of. Maybe. Good for them.

Schlatt was defeated and that probably wasn’t fun for him, but that’s life and Connor isn’t about to storm the sky for an expected cycle, even on behalf of his only friend.

His friend who _gave someone the book;_ Connor is debating the next plan of action when a soul forms and flickers in front of him.

A long gash across his chest, curly hair matted with sweat, Wilbur is definitely not the person Connor thought he’d be seeing next, out of everyone.

When someone dies in a war you assume their enemies are out celebrating their victory, not getting stabbed.

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

Wilbur looks him up and down. “Are you meant to be death?”

“I'm his secretary,” Connor says seriously, only fight off a smile as he realizes what’s about to happen. He points through the open door where the void awaits. “He’s through there.”

Wilbur nods and goes and Connor, for the first time, is tempted to enter the void. Just the idea of Schlatt’s alcoholic blur of peace being interrupted by the man he hates most in the world is enough to leave him cackling.

He doesn’t give in though. What he does is ready himself to enter the _other_ door.

Connor’s not sold on the whole thing. He’s not about to question the universe or his place in it now, not this late in the game, but he imagines the world’s in a lot of chaos at the moment and Connor is by no means volunteering to clean it up.

Still, he figures, if the control-freak patron of the world has his power of necromancy, he’d better go keep an eye on things.

When he opens his eyes to trees and grass and sun, he recoils a little. It’s weird to see it all again. The forest looks the same as it always has, some trees moved slightly in a direction, probably re-planted.

There’s some sort of building, but that’s to be expected. People are always trying to do something next and new and big. He’s prepared.

He cuts through the land and heads toward the tall bits of something obscuring the distant sky.

No amount of preparation could’ve prepared him for Tommy, who meets him with a surprised grin. “Connor!”

_Oh fuck._

Tommy’s not the first person who’s seen him, not even the first to hold a conversation, but somehow he’s managed to break unspoken rules without even trying.

Because they’re not supposed to remember anything other than the fact that they’ve lost a life. Some have nightmares, some vaguely remember a figure, none _recognize him and remember his name._

Connor learns, later, that this is very Tommy of him.

Connor learns the people and their relationships, the way Wilbur’s death was as big of a deal as he assumed, but also not at all, because somehow his ghost is just flying around and telling people he’s a completely different person.

Schlatt has a grave and an ex who pisses on it, which is just way more than he ever needed to know. There’s a pig people are mad at and a country people are a part of.

He claims land outside of that place - because he’s not about to land himself in a war - and then doesn’t do anything with it, because honestly, what’s the point?

He leans over and casually tells a skittish, tall guy that he’s the most important person in the world, laughing when he receives a placating “okay” in return and the guy slowly backs away.

Life, Connor finds, isn’t actually all that interesting. But it’s alright.

He goes between it and his realm, most of the time just because he doesn’t have to eat or watch for arrows or worry about being kidnapped down there.

(Oh boy was that an experience. Tommy thought it was hilarious, but he thankfully kept his mouth shut about the whole doorman gig.)

Tommy’s a good kid, despite his weird ties to Dream and the world and probably everything else too.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Connor tells him at his bench, because he does.

He knows the look in Tommy’s eyes, the deep-set haunting, the loss of hope; the future clinging on with desperate threads. It doesn’t usually come this early. People usually aren’t as good as Tommy is at hiding it.

Then he goes, setting up shop down below. So-called “Doomsday” is approaching and Connor definitely doesn’t want to fight and fully expects a theoretical wave of souls, more company for the dynamic duo in the void.

It’s actually only headset guy - who he now knows as Jack Manifold - that comes through, his last chance lost to what looks like an axe wound.

Jack Manifold is not a patient or polite sort of spirit. He tells Connor adamantly that he had more to offer the world and Connor shrugs. He’s not in the mood to argue, but he rarely is.

“The door’s to your left,” he says, pointing.

No one’s more surprised than Connor when Jack Manifold actually turns around and walks through it.

_That’s definitely not supposed to be possible._

He hadn’t even opened the door. Just sort of phased through.

The space in between isn’t meant to be some sort of matrix. They’re just doors.

This stuff made sense for eons, until Dream and all his people showed up. If Connor could get a headache, it would be splitting.

Connor knows he probably should do something.

Kill Jack himself maybe, put the universe back in order so as to not corrupt the delicate balance. He’s been entrusted with the halves of existence after all, the delicate line between known and unknown extends from his hands.

He leaves it.

He wasn’t the one to mess up the doors somehow.

Or maybe he was, but he doesn’t care. If consequence comes knocking he’ll go hang out with Schlatt.

Who, coincidentally, gets pulled through death’s door and dragged towards life by insistent, invisible hands only a few days later.

“Where am I going?” Schlatt demands, catching his eye.

Connor looks back down at his game of solitaire and moves the king of spades to the last row. “Fuck if I know.”

Schlatt comes back panting and irritated, apparently caught in some sort of resurrection attempt for Wilbur.

He’d had to see those people he despises and be in some sort of weird ghost body and there was a sheep and a salmon or something; Connor stops listening halfway through and lets Schlatt do his thing.  
  
“They didn’t even have the book,” he complains, conjuring a bottle and a pack of cigarettes and going right back into the void.

Connor is mildly impressed at their level of success without it.

* * *

Things are incredibly tense for the living - what with the giant hole in the ground and Tommy walking around like a man who knows his execution date - so Connor tends to avoid dealing with it.

It’s peaceful at the doorways.

Usually.

The one leading to the void swings open and Wilbur just sort of wanders out, pausing when he sees Connor. Connor sighs.

“Are we just abandoning the rules completely?” Connor asks the emptiness.

“What?”

Connor waves him off. Wilbur’s is the voice he expected in response, but not at all what he would actually need to get answers, and the nuances of gateways not worth his time or effort to explain.

Wilbur’s not here with him to enter either door, not really. He has one foot in each.

It’s unheard of.

Probably.

Connor’s only reference point is the past and it honestly blurs together in places, years and years of popping out every so often only to come back to the same thing. Maybe there was someone else like Wilbur. Maybe there have been many.

Maybe all men who start wars are just ships bound to sink.

Most people would probably assume that work with mortality is epic and important; Connor feels like he’s working a desk job. Everyone’s a client with something specific on their mind.

“Do you have anything you want?” he offers.

Wilbur isn’t even really Wilbur. He’s a ghost, wearing a yellow sweater and a smile, then a corporeal man, all hardened edges and bloody hands.

They have identical holes where their hearts should be and Connor has spoken to each of them separately.

Wilbur, Ghostbur, whoever he is flickers back and forth before shaking his head and reaching for his items.

“Could you give these to Tommy?” he asks, handing Connor a pickaxe and a crossbow.

_Chekhov's Gun and Ghostbur’s Pick._

“Sure.”

Wilbur thanks him in a voice that sounds layered over itself and goes back into the void, missing the sliver of light that shines through the other exit.

Connor wonders if the man will remember him when he’s brought back to life.

He gives the weapons to Tommy and Tommy marvels at them - “From your ghost friend,” Connor says, because that’s more realistic and easy to explain - before he leaves again.

If Tommy does die to Dream, he’ll probably be happy to see a familiar face waiting for him.

It doesn’t matter either way.

In fact, it’s Dream’s soul that comes to greet him.

Not exactly _greet,_ the man doesn’t see him at all. He nearly breaks the Jack Manifold record with how quickly he breezes back through to life and Connor has to stifle a laugh when he comes back again only to repeat the process.

Connor doesn’t reach out. Dream doesn’t need to know that the book he holds came from someone he’s passed by on the Prime Path. He doesn’t need to know that power is a leash and you can only stretch it as far as the world lets you go.

Maybe Connor will tell him later. Everything changes with time.

Gods become men. They fall. They build themselves prisons and act like it is an escape.

Connor watches.

Tommy wins and he’s glad. Not proud - Connor doesn’t care enough for that - but there’s something new and soft and alive instilled in Tommy’s gaze the next time they meet.

It means he’s been given more of something Connor’s never had sense of, time, and if the grip on Tubbo’s hand is any indication, he’s going to take care of it.

That’s less work for Connor.

They plan to resurrect Wilbur, apparently, and judging by the way things are, it’s going to work.

He doesn’t ask them what they plan to do if they don’t get the person they expect. He supposes they’ll have to deal with that.

Connor probably should stop it. Keep everything in order, let dead men rest in peace.

He doesn’t care to. That’s not his job.

Connor’s the doorkeeper, so to speak.

He takes care of the ways in and out. He makes sure no one else takes control of it.

They can try, but they will fail. Dream can’t keep the knowledge of resurrection going in the world, no matter what Schlatt promised him.

There’s a reason you go through a door, not just an open tunnel.

The pathway shuts. Its keys belong to Connor.

He’s going to get the book back, but he’s in no rush.

Someday, Dream will come down to the doorway for the last time.

In the meantime, Connor throws a party and drags Schlatt through the weird gap in death’s door for it. He comes out as a ghost, which is interesting, but Connor’s not about to ask questions.

Someone sets his house on fire. It’s okay, he wasn’t planning to live in it anyway.

People take this life thing too seriously.

**Author's Note:**

> In the end:
> 
> \- This was hard to title, I went with a TFB song, but I wanted one about Janus  
> \- Easy to write though actually, it all just kinda came together  
> \- I can hear his chat in my head mocking me I stg  
> \- Check out my Tumblr! Same @, you can read my suffering in real time (/lh)


End file.
